Past and current students from Clearview Regional High School’s robotics program displayed their projects, competitive robots and more during a showcase.
“It’s really cool and neat to show all of the work you’ve done in class and to bring in other people who may be interested,” said sophomore Sophia Cannon. “I think everyone has a little part of them that’s intrigued by this. It’s cool to show them the ins and outs of this and that it’s not that difficult to create.”
Cannon brought in her team’s robot, which has competed in the Rover Ruckus portion of the 2018-2019 FIRST Tech Challenge. She said students in the second level of the robotics courses learn how to build it, and also those who participate in the after-school club.
“It can latch and drop from our lander and can also push minerals around, which are blocks in a center, into a depot,” said Cannon. Her team has won awards in outreach and driving and was third-pick in the winning alliance categories.
Cannon had parents and children come up to drive her robot on a short course during the event and competed against fellow students in a mock Rover Ruckus game.
Other activities at the May 14 event included a display of a 3D printing machine, face painting, a plasma-cutting demonstration and various other hands-on activities.
Former students Shawn Mceoyle, Mitchell West and Jason Althouse were at the event as well, and showed the awards their robot won in the challenge. Their robot was designed to detect specific objects and place them into a field in a relic recovery event.
“The name relic recovery came from a little golden idol called a relic that they’d put in a corner of the field where our robots would have to place outside of the field to get points depending on the distance they placed it,” said Mceoyle, who’s now in college for physics.
The three added that coming back to the school, since graduating in 2018, was fun because they were able to see how much the program and club have grown since they left.
“Last year, we had to stop letting in members because it blew up so much,” said Althouse who’s in trade school for welding. “That’s why there’s 13 this year. It went from knowing someone in the club to get in, to everyone wanting to join in.”
“It’s an opportunity for kids to get involved in things like engineering, design and coding and get the experience later in life,” said Mceoyle.
